Institutional Research and Planning

The role of the Office of Institutional Research and Planning (OIRP) is to analytically support the planning, academic, administrative, and assessment functions of the University with timely, accurate, and forward looking information. OIRP is a University-wide research and planning resource reporting to the President. The range of assistance provided is broad -- ranging from financial aid modeling to space analyses and alumni surveying. OIRP broadly informs, but does not make, campus policy. As such, OIRP is necessarily unbiased and does not publicly support or endorse particular viewpoints within ongoing campus debates. Instead, the Office strives to provide appropriate information and context to campus decision makers and stakeholders.

The Office of Institutional Research was created by the University in 2002 in response to suggestions included in the Self Study conducted for reaccreditation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) and to meet a need for the enhanced use of information in campus planning and assessment. The Office was formally expanded to include planning in the summer of 2008.

Who We Are

Dr. Richard A. Wagner

Director of Institutional Research and Planning

Before coming to Western New England University in 2002, Dick Wagner held administrative research positions at Smith College, The Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) at Yale University, and the Massachusetts Institute for Social and Economic Research (MISER) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Massachusetts and has conducted research informing public policy for a number of state agencies including the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, the Department of Housing and Community Development, and the Office of the Jury Commissioner. His specialties include demography and the use of administrative databases in support of policy planning. He is the author of numerous articles on computer applications in the social sciences and has published databases for both research and educational use.

Mary M. Grey

Assistant Director of Institutional Research

Mary M. Grey graduated from Springfield College with a Bachelors of Science degree in Biology. Before coming to Western New England University in 2004 and joining the Office of Institutional Research and Planning in 2012, she worked at Ludlow Textiles as a New Product Development Engineer and at Monsanto Chemical Company as a Research Technician. Mary has two daughters, Maryanne and Kimberly. She volunteers for the USO, Girl Scouts, and the Red Cross. She has been a CCD teacher for over a decade with her parish, St. Rose de Lima.